11 Plus Exams Forum

Am struggling to explain this to DD in an 'easy' way. Any advice please would be much appreciated.

Question 1
Eleanor is 11 years and 4 months old. Her sister Mary is 3 years and 10 months younger than Eleanor.
How old is Mary? Give your answer in years and months

Question 2
Katharine was born on 1st May 1997
Helen was born on 1st March 2003
(a) By how many years and months is Katharine older than Helen?
(b) Sam is exactly 18 months younger than Katharine. Work out sam's date of birth

thanks
Sleepyhead

SleepyHead wrote:Am struggling to explain this to DD in an 'easy' way. Any advice please would be much appreciated.

Question 1
Eleanor is 11 years and 4 months old. Her sister Mary is 3 years and 10 months younger than Eleanor.
How old is Mary? Give your answer in years and months

I would do this one by converting the whole lot to months but then I grew up chanting the 12 times table (do they still learn this??)

So 11 yrs 4 mos = 136
minus 3 yrs 10 months or 46months
= 90 months or 7 years 6 months.

SleepyHead wrote:Question 1
Eleanor is 11 years and 4 months old. Her sister Mary is 3 years and 10 months younger than Eleanor.
How old is Mary? Give your answer in years and months

I would do this as subtract 4 years, and than add two months. i.e. 7 years and 6 months

SleepyHead wrote:Question 2
Katharine was born on 1st May 1997
Helen was born on 1st March 2003
(a) By how many years and months is Katharine older than Helen?
(b) Sam is exactly 18 months younger than Katharine. Work out sam's date of birth

a) If both dates were May the difference would be 6 years (2003-1997). But there are two months difference between March and May, so subtract those to give 5 years and 10 months.
b) Subtract 2 years, then add six months.

It is worth learning the month -> number correlations so that she can see quickly that October is 10, August is 5, May is 5 etc. Then sums like May - minus two months = March becomes the simpler sounding 5-2=3 (and you'd know 3 is March).

hermanmunster wrote:converting the whole lot to months

thanks - this a great idea.

Okanagan wrote:It is worth learning the month -> number correlations so that she can see quickly that October is 10, August is 5, May is 5 etc. Then sums like May - minus two months = March becomes the simpler sounding 5-2=3 (and you'd know 3 is March).

like this method too

Does anyone know where I can find more of these examples for practice?

Okanagan wrote:a) If both dates were May the difference would be 6 years (2003-2007).

I think there's a typo 6 years (2003-1997).

The other variation which I found slightly complicated is:

If 15th Jan is Wednesday, what day is 1st April?

Solution 1: April fools day
Solution 2: Look in calendar for 2014

Ok... I'll be serious now. Calculate using times 7 technique ... it is Tuesday.

We used hermonmunsters method here too.

I hated those what day questions too! My ds was better than me at then that's for sure

My ds and I hated these question as well, especially when the gap goes beyond 2 months.

I remember reading a more detailed post about calendar questsion, it explains it in more detail. Just can't stand these questions either and DD looks completely lost when I try to explain it to her.


Here's the link

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... =2&t=35432" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just wondering how people teach their DC to add age.


So if you need add Mary's age of 10 years 9 months to Sean's age of 2 years 4 months, and would you do

10years 9months +
2 years 4 months
-------------------------
12 years 13months
= 13 years 1 month
--------------------------
?

thanks sleepyhead

Convert to months, add/subtract them. Then divide by 12. The whole number is years, and remainder is months.